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Dally Journal - Record Centennial Edition, Friday, Sept. 1, 1967 Tough Sailors Flavored, Shaped Town Oakville had a decidedly salty flavor in its early days -- a flavor caught from the masters, crew and builders of the schoon ers upon which the village' s pros perity depended. They were a boisterous bunch, especially in the winter, w h e n they had little to do but sit ar ound the taverns waiting for the spring break-up on the ice-bound lake. One of the greatest battles ever to take place in Oakville was fought one Sunday afternoon near the Victoria House between Protestant sailors and R o m a n Catholics. The main weapons w ere axe - handles and many a head was battered and a few a h n s broken. Another early account tells of a raid on a Grit political rally by a gang of sailors, who, de pendent on their Tory shipown ers in the days of the o p e n ballot, were always vocal tories. G RIT SWIMS The candidate and his support ers were assembled in the town hall when the sailors rushed in, ·winging their fists and shooting their pistols at the feet o f their opponents. The Grits were driv en down the stairs and out o f the hall, their candidate managing to escape only by swimm ing The Sixteen. It was not until the sailors' numbers began to thin out in the 70's that the Grits managed to gain a foothold in town polit ics. But for all their rowdiness on shore, the sailors brought the town its livelihood, and theirs was by far the m ost dangerous occupation in the colony. Particularly hazardous was the job of the tim ber rafters. The cheapest way to get Oak ville's tim ber resources to the market in Montreal was to lash the tim ber into rafts, joined into trains hundreds o f feet long, and tow It down by steamer. LAKE STORMS It was hard enough to negotiate the rapids o f the St. Lawrence but the lake, notorious for its sudden storms, was worse. And the French - Canadian or Indian raftsmen hired to ride the rafts down to Montreal had little chance if their raft broke up in a squall. But despite the danger they made an impressive sight, those huge chains of wood with their colorful streamers, raftsm en's shacks and countless little sails, and m any writers of the period tell how they were struck by the sight of a chain of rafts drift ing by at night far out in the lake with the cook-fire blazing in the sand-pit o f the " Caboose" raft and the raftsmen singing their soft, sad songs. Neither was it all balm y breezes for the schoonermen. The accounts are m any of the ships that went down with all hands in storm s on the lake. In 1857 the schooner "A m el ia ," built 20 years before by Jacob Randall, was setting out on a voyage when an argument arose between her captain and a seaman, Joseph Mackinder, who claim ed she was too deep ly laden with wheat and setting down in the head. NO TRACE Mackinder finally refused to ship out on her that trip, and the " Am elia" sailed out o f The Sixteen, around M erigold' s Point a few m iles to the east, and was never heard from again. Mackinder then shipped out aboard the "T em pest" bound for Australia. He was first mate, and several in his crew were also Oakville men. It went down with all hands. John Potter scorned the sail o r' s superstition that Friday was unlucky, and on a Friday he laid down a schooner for which the plans had been drawn on a Friday, launched her on a Fri day and sailed out for Hamilton on a Friday. The ship disappear ed without a trace. They served their purpose well laden or in ballast in different types o f wind and sea, and the for years, marking a landfall for many a master who other pros and cons o f various rig. wise would have groped has way FALSE HARBORS along the shore and m aybe brok One o f the hazards discussed en up his ship on the rocks of at these sessions was the similar som e deceptive creek mouth. ity of the skyline at Oakville They are gone now, but m ay be harbor, Coates' Creek and the seen in old photographs o f the Little Sixteen, on the land now lakeshore. occupied by Appleby College. Eery one of the captains had found SAILOR SONS Among the masters to be guid him self running into port before heavy seas when fog or twilight ed b y old Peter' s trees were his obscured the shoreline and all sons Duncan and Robert, who knew the danger of mistaking later com manded sailing ships, one o f the shallow creeks for and his youngest son James, who foresook the fam ily tradit The Sixteen. ion and went "into steam ." So Peter decided to do som e But despite the pride o f the thing to m ake the skyline at the Sixteen distinctive. In front of lake sailors in their tall ships his house built on a lakeshore the com ing o f steam was inevit lot he had bought from William able. Canada's first steamship Chisholm, he planted a row of was the " A ccom m odation," built fast - growing, tall Lombardy by John Molson in Montreal in 1809, just three years after " Ful Poplars. stir when it sailed to A frica and families and took up new occu p back in one season, at the same ations in Oakville. Many o f Oak the time inaugurating trade between ville' s oldest families are Africa and Canada; but m ore children and grandchildren of the But it was not until 1835 that than 30 years earlier, in 1833, tough schoonerman who kept the a steam er began to make regul the "R o y a l William" , manned town alive in the early days. ar runs from Y ork to Hamilton by Canadians, had m ade the first and around to the New York Atlantic crossing by steam in ports on the south side. It was only 19 days. PIO NEE R PRICES the " Consittution" built in Oak But it wasn' t steam that ended ville by Col. Chosholm' s shipyard A bargain $6 per thousand was Oakville's days as a haven for under contract to a joint stock sailors. Oakville's sailors could the price o f barrel staves man company. sail a steamship as well as a ufactured in Proudfoot's Mill in Old Sixteen Village (just west Its master was Capt. Edward schooner, and many did. o f King Paving in the creek val Zealand, w ho had once b e e n It was the death of f t e harbor ley) back in 1857. the master o f an ocean - going itself, caused by the railroad's ship, and who had captained the diversion o f Halton County' s pro "R eb ecca and Eliza" and other duce to Toronto and Hamilton ships owned by Chisholm. STRAW BERRY COUNTRY instead o f out through the port NOTABLE VOYAGE The schooners were on the w ay out. The Oakville schooner "S ea Gull," owned and skipper ed by Oakville citizen Captain Francis Jackman, made quite a o f Oakville, coupled with the dwindling supply of trees and the death of the timber trade. John Cross, a Yorkshireman, cultivated strawberries in the Oakville area as early a t 1851. Some o f the sailors m oved to Mr. Cross sold runners o f the m ore lucrative shipping lanes, fruit to other farmers for $4 per but others stayed on with their thousand. ton's F olly" did the impossible on the Hudson R iver. Two years later the " Walk-in-the-Water" was launched on Lake Erie. S H A K Y W E A L T H Rise And Fall Of Lake Trade Affected Port T i e history of Oakville is nosedive in 1858, and never re bound to the rise and decline covered. Farm ers had over-exo f its port at the mouth o f The tended themselves in the boom Sixteen. F o r m any years the years, when crop failures in oth tow n's fortunes rose and fell er countries had raised the price with the ups and downs o f Lake o f Canadian wheat to $2.50 per Ontario com m erce and the final bushel, and many lost the land death o f the port as a com m erc they had bought on credit. ial centre brought a long period Most tightened their belts and o f stagnation for Oakville. began to depend on diversified It was the possibilities for a crops rather than just wheat. Al port on The Sixteen to tap the so, they began to look to the new inland com m erce o f the area markets being created by the that first prompted Col. William rise o f cities close at h a n d , Chisholm to found the village of rather than marketing their Oakville and to undertake the goods through the port o f Oak dredging of the harbor and con ville. struction of a pier at his own SOILS RUINED expense. Other factors contributing to In a letter to the lieutenant the decline of Oakville as a governor In 1824 Chisolm said of wheat port were attacks of in The Sixteen: "F ro m here is ship sect pests in the latter years of ped a considerable portion o f the the fifties, and, in the older ar staves m ade in the adjacent eas of the county, the depletion county and no doubt this in time o f soils. w ill becom e a place from which The figures jn the Tables of m ucii of tlie surplus p rod u ce in Trade and Navigation in the pirothe rear will be supplied.' 1 ' vlttce shc>w clearly the dramattir There was already a small decline in the port's com m erce. com m unity growing up in The M ore han 282,000 bushels of Sixteen Hollow to the north, and wheat were shipped to the Un m any o f the farm ers in the area ited States in 1856, but by 1862, earned extra m oney by cutting just six years later .this had barrel staves and floating them dropped to 86,000 bushels, and down the creek to the lake. the expenses of collecting tolls CASH CROPS on exports, $1,426, was three It was primarily wood pro times the revenue. ducts, particularly barrel staves, In 1863 the num ber o f bushels that Chisholm was interested in shipped dropped to 44,000, a n d as a merchant, but he seems after 1865 Oakville does not even also to have foreseen that the appear on the Tables, probably farm ers of Halton County would because the figures were so eventually take to producing cash sm all that the town was group crops for which they would need ed among " Other P orts" . Dur an outlet to markets down the ing the eighties, the amount lake. shipped was rarely m ore than And Chisholm, as the owner of two schooner loads per season. a private port, could collect a The port's gross revenue, percentage of all goods shipped which had been m ore than a through Oakville and his purse half - million dollars in 1856, had would expand as trade in the dropped to under $1,000 in 1875, area increased. and after 1880 never again reach But things did not work out ed $500. As a com m ercial port, that way, unforunately for Chis Oakville was dead. holm. The expense of keeping up BACKWATER a harbor proved to be too much This failing com m erce, coup for one m an's resources. He died led with an econom ic depression bankrupt, but the harbor he had that hit the entire country, built continued to bring prosper transformed Oakville almost ov ity to the town he founded. ernight into an econom ic back The harbor passed into the water. hands of Chisholm's sons, who Even the Am erican Civil War, farm ed a stock com pany to try with the huge demand it creat to spread the expenses of its up ed for foodstuffs, did not profit keep. The harbor never brought Oakville as it did the rest of the a profit to private ownership, and country, because the railroad had so it eventually passed into the provided area farm ers with out hands o f the town corporation. lets to the east and west for PORT PROSPERS their crops. But the port of Oakville was Oakville's population, which another matter. Chisholm's pre had been m ore than 2,000 in diction that the town would be 1857, had dropped m ore than 25 com e a shipping terminal for its per cent to 1,450 by 1861, and entire inland surroundings prov ten years later it had dropped ed true, and the com m erce of to just over 1,000. the port increased as the front Businesses went broke or m ov ier was pushed farther and far ed away, whole fam ilies fled to ther north. greener pastures, the bottom Tim ber still stood thick on the dropped out of property values land in the early days, and Hal and the town's shippers and ton County farm ers were pro sailors saw the writing on the ducing m ore wheat per acre than wall. The boom was over. those o f any other county, and BUILD ESTATE so the little port of Oakville con Oakville's dog days continued tributed a god share o f the tim uninterrupted until near the turn ber staves, wheat and flour be o f the century, when the area ing shipped from the St. Lawr becam e fam ous as a fruit-grow en ce to Britain. ing district, especially for its When Britain repealed the strawberries. The town was also C om Laws in 1846, ending the becom ing recognized as a pleas favorable position Canadian ant resort, and m any city dwel wheat had held on the British lers cam e for the sum m er or market, the colony's com m erce built permanent estates. suffered a serious setback. The exodus from the city But Oakville, although it was brought in enough revenue to in the middle o f a wheat belt m ake municipal ends meet, to and depended on wheat com pave the odd street, install a m erce for its prosperity, did not few sew ers and street lights. appear to suffer as much as the But the town would have to rest o f the county from the re wait until after the Second World pail o f the C om Laws. War, until large industries be This testifies to the fact that gan to see the advantages of m ost o f the grain shipped from settling in an area with cheap Oakville went to the United land and ready access to high States through the Erie Canal. w ay and railroad t r af f i c, be Significant also is the increase fore it could again look forward in the export of whiskey from with the econom ic optimism Oakville after 1846, which shows that characterized Col. Chis that the farm ers in the area holm ' s early ambitions for Oak w ere also using the Oakville ville. Brewing and Distilling Company And just as life in the harbor as an outlet for their grain. once brought prosperity to Oak The port continued to prosper ville, now it is Oakville's pros for 15 years after the repeal of perity that has brought life to the Com Laws. In 1857, with a the harbor once m ore, w i t h population o f over 2,000. Oakvillc- pleasure craft sporting m ore w as incorporated as a town. sails than ever graced the port But the price o f wheat took a in the days o f the schoonermen. SKIPPERS SERIOUS The masters of the lake schoo ners were sober men who took their business seriously. Many were part - owners of the ships they sailed, and most built their homes in Oakville and had a stake in the prosperity of the town and its port. Typical of these old skippers w as Captain Peter McCorquodale, who was b om in Scotland in 1807 and gained considerable experience as a Sottish coast sailor before com ing to Canada at age 23. He first appears in local hist ory as m aster and part owner of the schooner " Royal T a r," named after the newly - crowned William IV, the "sa ilor king." P eter was a man o f few words, but a good listener, and when local mariners were talk ing shop there was little that es caped him. He and old-timers like Capt. Nick Boylan, J o . h « M oore, and the Itother captains Robert and Will'am Wilson would tallk for hours about local weath er conditions handling of ships Would you like to get rid of that This is our e n t e n n ia l Project J . and w e're quite proud of it! P & L first opened their doors in August of 1960 and since that time have undergone many changes. Earlier this year the most radical of them all took place . . . a complete store renovation along with the switch to a more specialized type of operation. P & L now specialize in a complete line of stationery, greeting cards and party supplies which should fill the requirements of all its customers. Both of the changes were made with this thought in mind - to better serve the people of Oakville. Drop in and have a look around. Contact this man now 1867 U 1967 BOB BLADES He sells d h & M n u a tic Humidifiers The low cost of installing » Drumatic Humidifier in your home w ill be more than offset by the comfort realized by your family. Constant colds and sore throats and nasal passages are common in homes without proper humidity. Electrical shocks bounce off door knobs and furniture falls apart when a dry condition exists. Drumatic humidifiers are installed directly on your furnace and automatically circulates properly humidified air to every room in your home. Controlled by a humidistat mounted on a wall in your living area. Call your Drumatic man now! T h e In te r io r o f P & L S ta tio n e ry Is s h e w n on th e le f t b e tte r illu s tra tin g th e a ttr a c tiv e n e w a p p e a ra n c e o f th e s to re w ith is t la r g e v a r ie t y o f m e rc h a n d is e . S o m e o f th e a c fd itio n a l s e rv ic e * s v a ila b le a re -- D U P L IC A T IN G , M IM E O G R A P H IN G -- P H O T O C O P IE S S P IR IT (E le c tro s ta tic ) p lu s A D D R E S S IN G a n d M A IL IN G . Celebrating our seventh for year it of all service possible in Oakville Thanks Manufactured by th« Wait-Skuttle Company, 3 5 9 Davis Road, Oakville, O n t making 172 Lakeshore Rd. E. F U E L S o L .m u J 595 SPEEKS R.U. O AKVILLE, O NTARIO P u t Oakville I